1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of digital rights management and, more particularly, to a method for processing rights granted to an operator of a device or a group of devices using a rights object that can be forwarded electronically.
2. Description of the Related Art
Relevant devices in which digital rights management may be implemented include devices include production apparatuses. The digital rights, such as rights relating to the type and volume of goods that are to be produced or can be produced, may be conferred on an operator of such apparatuses by a digital rights object. However, companies often seek or are required to outsource work that arises upstream of production, accompanies production, arises afterward or only after the conclusion of production. Consequently, it is also desirable to provide digital rights management in devices that enable, e.g., a simulation of products to be created subsequently, or devices enabling other tests or investigations upstream of production to be performed.
In general, rights objects such as the above-described objects are used when a party needs to pass intellectual property, such as details about an article to be produced, out of house for either further production associated with the intellectual property, work or investigations upstream of production, as outlined above. Such a process of passing on information is always associated with risks for the rights of the owner of the intellectual property, which risks can be managed only to a limited extent by contractual safeguards.
On the one hand, the rights object is provided for precisely specifying the rights that the recipient of such data acquires in connection with the services respectively commissioned because an operator of corresponding production devices who acts as a production service provider must necessarily know structural or other technical details of the articles that are to be produced. On the other hand, the production of such articles is intended to be possible only within a contractually determined scope, such that the rights object codes at least one contractually agreed quantitative delimitation.
A service provider who, in a manner accompanying production or in the front end of production, performs, e.g., simulations of goods to be produced most probably is not required to know all the details of the respective article, such that a rights object communicated to this service provider, in the case of data which describe the respective article to its full extent, codes a read authorization only for those data which are relevant to the simulations that are to be performed by this service provider, such as only data regarding the geometry and regarding the surface constitution for flow analyses, and not data which relate to the internal functionality of the article. Conversely, for a service provider who needs to verify the electrical suitability of an apparatus or the functionality of the software that the apparatus comprises, a read authorization for data in this regard is coded by the respective rights object, while access to other data is denied.
Rights management (i.e., digital rights management (DRM)) as outlined above has been the subject of development efforts for some time and digital rights management is known, e.g., from the entertainment industry, where data carriers having video and/or audio data are provided with a copy protection to ensure that a purchaser does not make copies for unauthorized distribution. For service providers who are commissioned to produce data carriers by owners of intellectual property relating to such video and audio data, for example, it is known that the rights for creating a specific number of data carriers are granted to a specific production facility by a specific rights object in each case.
By contrast, the disclosed invention is directed to a problem associated with the creation, visualization, simulation, production, and the like of more complex products, such as parts for the automotive industry. In this case, a rigid rights allocation is not very practical and, therefore, prior electronic checking and delimiting of contractually granted rights have not occurred. Instead, the owner of the rights associated with the intellectual property has relied or had to rely on the economic interest of the recipient of such sensitive data over a long-term cooperative arrangement or agreement.
The unsuitability of conventional concepts for the field of automation technology, i.e., the automation of technical processes for simulation, visualization, design, production of, in particular industrially produced goods, is caused primarily by the fact that upon conclusion of a contract it is virtually unforeseeable which specific devices are used by the respective contractor for the services commissioned. In the case of a firm of consulting engineers concerned with flow analyses and in this respect, e.g., with the analysis of surface configurations of flow-sensitive articles, present-day computers, such as conventional personal computers, and if appropriate such a computer having an increased level of computing power, can comprise a device that can be used to perform a service which is accounted for by the present invention. If the service provider has a plurality of such devices available, each of these devices is taken into consideration. It is expedient for the service provider, however, if the service provider can decide, depending on workload and capacity utilization, which device or devices that the service provider may specifically wish to use to fulfill the respective order.